Customising Your Pricing, Incentives, Equipment and Stringing for a System (OpenSolar 1.0)

This article is in the Studio section of the App. 

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Sections in this Article:

System Design

Panels

Shading

Inverters

Batteries and Other Components

Pricing & Payment Options

Pricing

Incentives

Costs & Margin

 

 

 

Once you have placed all the panels and are happy with how they look, you have the option to change the pricing schemes or equipment that are used in your system. You can also add any Price Adders, Discounts, Incentives or Down Payments for a system.

If you have set-up your default panels, inverters and pricing schemes and are happy to use the defaults for this design, then you can skip this step.

 

Panels 

If you wish to use a different panel type for a system, simply select the system you are editing and choose a panel from the drop down menu in the left hand sidebar. Click on the Select button to change panel type. 

Adding a DC Optimiser:

To add a DC optimiser, simply:

1. Click the Use DC Optimiser box within the Panels drop down on the sidebar

2. Enter in the efficiency of the DC Optimiser on a scale from 0-1 

 

  

 

Shading

Next, you will have the capability to account for any shading losses in a system. This is done by selecting the “Shading” drop down in the left hand sidebar and choosing which scale you would like to estimate this on, Inherit (none), Annual, Monthly or Seasonal.

 

Simply reduce the slider to the new percentage to account for shading.

 

 

Inverters and Stringing

 

Please see this short video below which goes through how to string inverters manually in OpenSolar and follow along with the step-by-step tutorial.

 

 

 

By clicking on the “Inverters” drop down in the left hand sidebar, the stringing of the modules will appear.

 

 

If you are not technically trained, OpenSolar would recommend using the “Auto-String Estimate” for your designs, skip this step if you will use Auto-String Estimate.

 

However, you do have the capability to string the modules yourself.

1. Uncheck the “Auto-String Estimate” box
2. Select the Inverter Type from the drop down underneath “Inverter Type” (you can add or remove inverters by using the  button or the  button)
3. Add Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPT) by clicking  or remove MPPTs by clicking the   inside the MPPT area.

4. Add Strings by clicking  and remove them by clicking on the X that appears next to the string.

Once you have created a new string, it will be empty.

In order to add panels to that string you must:

1. Click on the empty string so that it becomes highlighted by a yellow outline

2. Click and drag over the modules which you wish to be a part of that string (a purple line will be created which represents the stringing).

 

When manually stringing systems, it is important that you know how many MPPTs that the inverter has and what the power rating is, so that you do not string a faulty circuit.

Batteries and Other Components

Similarly to the inverters you can choose to add either a battery or a component that you have created by going to the respective section in the left hand sidebar and choosing to either add a battery, , or add a component,  and selecting the model from the drop-down.

These can also be removed by clicking the  button.

 

 

Pricing

In order to choose a different a different pricing scheme for your system, simply select the system for which you wish to change the pricing scheme and then click on the “Pricing” drop down in the left hand sidebar.

Note: if you would like to simply enter in the price of the system then:

1. Choose Pricing: "None (manual adders only)"
2. Enter in the total system price (including GST and before STC) in the Price Adders (Fixed) section

Incentives

By default, the incentives that are set to auto-apply will be chosen and applied. However, you have the option to override these and apply any of your incentives manually by checking the box Override Default Incentives and then selecting individual incentives from the list (find out how to edit these and create your own here.)

You can also add in once-off incentives for a certain project by clicking on the "+" icon next to either Incentives Claimed by Customer or  Incentives Claimed by Installer. 

Then simply enter in a title and an amount and it will appear on the proposal as a line item. 

Here you can also add any Adders, Discounts and Down Payments for this system by entering in the fields shown above.

 

 

 

 

Cost & Margin

This section in the left hand sidebar, will give you a breakdown of the general financials involved in the installation of your system. 

These costs are fully customisable within Control>Pricing and Payments>Cost Information. Find out how to set-up these costs by reading How to Set-up Your Advanced Project Costs. This feature allows you to see an on-the-spot breakdown of all of your system costs, while you are designing in the studio. 

This then allows you to see how much profit the installation will be generating for you and see what exact section is the most expensive. 

 

 

Once you are happy with your design, simply click, drag and zoom the map so that your design(s) is/are within the dotted white box (this is what will be displayed in your proposal). Then click on the MyEnergy icon on the bottom toolbar and when prompted to save, click Save and Continue.